282 AXNL'AL REPORTS OF DEPAETiVIENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ijiipossible. Losses of from 40 to 60 per cent of the growing cane 

 li.'ive been reported. The depredatios are by the cotton rat, a small 

 ratlike rodent limited to the South Atlantic and Gulf States. In- 

 vestigation has determined effective methods of poisoning these 

 rodents, and it is believed that through demonstrations and advice 

 the growers will be able to control the rats and reduce the losses 

 to a negligible amount. 



Wood rats continue to be troublesome in limited areas, and where 

 they become especially injurious demonstrations and advice have 

 been given for their control. 



HOUSE RATS AND MICE. 



The extended educational campaign inaugurated last year was 

 continued in order to acquaint the public with the serious drain 

 on the Nation's food resources through depredations of house rats. 

 Demonstrations w'ere given of methods of poisoning and trapping 

 the animals, and plans for community organization against them 

 vrere presented and discussed. As a result many State officials. State 

 councils of defense, and public-spirited citizens took up the Avork 

 of organizing campaigns, and great numbers of the rodents were 

 destroyed. 



Eequests Avere made by military and naval officers in charge of 

 camps, arsenals, and storage warehouses in this country for advice 

 and assistance in controlling house rats in the buildings under 

 their control. Exj^erienced representatives were detailed to investi- 

 gate conditions and recommend plans for limiting the losses. Grati- 

 fjing results w^erc obtained, perhaps the most important of Avhich 

 was at the Bush Terminal Avarehouses in Brooklyn, N. Y. These 

 great Avarehouses Avere taken over by the Government for Army 

 quartermaster storehouses, and were so badly infested by rats as 

 seriously to endanger the stored food and other Army supplies. At 

 the request of the quartermaster officer in charge, a rcprcsentatiA'o 

 of the bureau made a survey of the warehouses in January, 1918, 

 and recommended a method of procedure for controlling the rats. 

 At the end of the year the quartermaster officer in charge advised 

 that the recomiuendations of the bureau had been followed Avith 

 complete success. He reported that at first practically a barrelful 

 of rats were killed each day, and that more than 35,000 rats AA'ere 

 killed during the year. The Avork of destruction was so thorough 

 that he reports the losses of military supplies during the entire 

 year to have been negligible. 



Large numbers of the Farmers' Bulletin (No. 896) giving infor- 

 mation concerning the destruction of rats Avere used in this country 

 by the Quartermaster Department of the Army and also in France 

 in an effort to control losses from these animals. 



In this connection it may be stated that scA^eral experts in rodent 

 control who Avere commissioned in the Sanitary Corps of the Ameri- 

 can Expeditionary Forces in France for the purpose of controlling 

 the depredations of rats in connection with the Army operations, 

 Avere highly successful in prcA^enting heavy losses of quartermaster 

 stores from these rodents. 



MOLES. 



Throughout the A^ear demonstrations Averc continued in Washing- 

 ton and Oregon for the control of the large moles AA-hich are a serious 



